


A Great Soul

by deedeeinfj, PhryneFicathon



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 12:08:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17022348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deedeeinfj/pseuds/deedeeinfj, https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhryneFicathon/pseuds/PhryneFicathon
Summary: Jack reads to Phryne as she bathes.





	A Great Soul

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kid_n_the_hall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kid_n_the_hall/gifts).



> Prompt image: 

Jack turned the page of his book and glanced over at Phryne, who was running her wet hands over her arms in the bath. 

“Cold?” he asked. He trailed his fingertips in the water, which was still quite warm.

She gave him a bemused look, as if just now remembering he was there, and then shook her head. Jack leaned closer and examined her eyes, but her pupils seemed normal. She leaned onto the side of the tub and sank sideways into the bubbles around her.

Phryne had suffered a major concussion that afternoon, and Dr. Macmillan had given him strict orders not to let her out of his sight. On pain of death – and this was a threat he believed, coming from her – he was not to let Phryne fall asleep before bedtime. He was to watch her for signs of dizziness, slurred speech, or anything else abnormal. Thus he found himself reading in a chair beside Phryne’s tub as she bathed.

Gently, he touched the back of her head and felt the raised knot from the cricket bat that Tom Watkins had smashed into her before Jack tackled and handcuffed him. Phryne winced.

“Sorry,” he said.

“The aspirin is wearing off.” She sighed and tucked her hand between her cheek and the side of the tub. “What are you reading?”

He showed her the worn cover of _Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc_ , and she smiled. “Do you know it?” he asked.

“Not that one, but I have enjoyed Twain. Will you read aloud?”

Jack smiled. “This one isn’t funny, and you’re not to fall asleep for another…” He pretended to check his empty wrist for the time.

“Please?”

He had long ago given up refusing her, so he read.

_Some of the men had been trying to understand why Joan continued to be alert, vigorous, and confident while the strongest men in the company were fagged with the heavy marches and exposure and were become morose and irritable. There, it shows you how men can have eyes and yet not see. All their lives those men had seen their own women-folks hitched up with a cow and dragging the plow in the fields while the men did the driving. They had also seen other evidences that women have far more endurance and patience and fortitude than men—but what good had their seeing these things been to them? None. It had taught them nothing. They were still surprised to see a girl of seventeen bear the fatigues of war better than trained veterans of the army. Moreover, they did not reflect that a great soul, with a great purpose, can make a weak body strong and keep it so; and here was the greatest soul in the universe; but how could they know that, those dumb creatures?_

He stopped when he felt Phryne’s wet fingers on his bare ankle, tracing up under the cuff of his pyjama bottoms. Her skin was warm from the water, and droplets trailed down his skin, tickling.

“You’re so beautiful, Jack. Your voice. Everything.”

“Phryne, are you all right?” he asked, no trace of humor in the question. “Should I call—”

Phryne sat up straight, the sudden movement sloshing the water around her, and said in the clearest possible tone, “I am perfectly lucid, Jack Robinson, and if I want to compliment my partner, I will bloody well do it.”

Jack couldn’t help but huff a short laugh. “You can’t fault me for being concerned. That bastard knocked you unconscious. And Dr. Macmillan’s threats seemed more than genuine.”

He set his book aside as Phryne stood, stepped out of the bath, and situated herself in his lap, immediately soaking through his pyjamas and the front of his singlet. She draped her arms over his shoulders and kissed him as his own arms wrapped around her waist. 

“Thank you for saving my life today,” she murmured against his lips.

“You would have found a way out of it. You always do.” He kept his voice light, but he knew very well that Watkins would have picked up Phryne’s gun while she was unconscious and…

“No,” she said, kissing his nose. “Not this time.”

“I suppose I owed you one,” he smiled.

Phryne fumbled between them for the edge of his singlet and pulled it up over his head, then pressed closer to him. “I want to go to bed,” she said against the shell of his ear. “I need to feel you.”

His breath hitched as her intrepid fingers pushed under his waistband. “I think you already are, love,” he said a little breathlessly. “Why don’t you get into bed and take care of any, ah, preparations, and I’ll strip off these wet things and drain the bath.”

She scraped her teeth along his jaw. “Mr. Practical.”

He immediately hated his own suggestion as cool air replaced the warm, wet pressure of her body, but it was incentive enough to move quickly. He retrieved the discarded singlet from the floor and draped it and the wet pyjamas on the edge of the tub, then spread her unused towel on the floor to sop up the puddle she had made.

It was the work of only a minute, but when he joined her at the bed, it was to find her sound asleep beneath the sheets. He glanced at the clock; it was a safe enough hour for her to sleep, and he knew how she had struggled all evening to keep from nodding off. She was exhausted. 

He was, too, come to that. The case had been brutal even before Watkins’ violent attack. 

Jack slid in beside her and pulled her close, smiling as her arm tightened over his stomach. 


End file.
